/sigh
No, it's not the same results (at all). There is a big difference between being able to knockdown a shield or two with ship-based weapons that one or two squadrons can then attack and being able to stack 6 squadrons on a ship with no shields (designed) and do max damage on all attacks without mitigation.
And honestly I dont know what the fuss is about how things are affected in a no-shield environment. Playing with that requires other restrictions as well or else a lot of things are dramatically changed in effectiveness. For example, all of the Laser-line of weapons look extremely weak in a no-shield game. Similarly, Disruptors and their ilk seem might powerful without the need to KO shields first. And don't even get started on SD torps which would wreck anything out there for little cost if they dont have any shields in the way.
So I guess I just dont understand why the all the paranoia about Fighters when playing with no shields. Sure, they'll wreck things...so will many other things that do high hull damage and low/no shield damage. You have to modify the game a tad to make it work with those rules (at least at more limitations) so I dont see what the big deal about having to limit Fighters for that ruleset.
At any rate, there seems to be a lot of confusion between two concepts:
Effective vs Cost-effective.
MANY things can be the former, without being the latter. But it is the latter that decides the game balance.
For example, even in the base rules, Fighters can be EFFECTIVE. They can still kill small ships and they can erode larger ships and tax shield regen. That is a given.
However, they do NOT do that COST-Effectively. And by that, I mean that there are plenty of other ways to spend your tonnage/tech/roles to achieve a superior result. On top of that, Fighter can easily be countered in many ways, leading to further reduction in cost effectivness if your opponent happens to have those capabilities. By contrast, many other weapons have no direct counter and are always effective. This makes Fighters a risk regardless of how effective they are.
At any rate, to recap:
Options:
Fire last, 2 damage:
Done like this, Fighters are not remotely worth their cost. To do damage pretty much requires you to have punched through the shields anyways with ship-based weapons. Otherwise only the smallest ships can be affected. And if you can punch through the shields on the engaged side, why would you want to wait till the Fighter attack phase to do the rest of your internal damage? Why not spend that tonnage on more ship-based weapons and do the damage NOW (possibly even preventing return fire if your firing first).
This leaves Fighters to be a very weak 'finisher' or else to gang up on small ships and wear them down/kill them AFTER they have fired. Fighters will also erode rather quickly due to ships always being 1 turn ahead in firing on them.
Fire second, 3 damage:
This helps put the Fighter back on par for damage per cost. They begin to be cost-effective here. They are still in the 'finisher' role however and they do little to compliment shipboard capabilities (again, you can spend that tonnage on weapons that can fire earlier and are already having to fire through downed shields to be effective). Fighters could work like this IMO, but I still wouldnt invest a lot of tonnage defending against them with specialized weapons. They dont really offer much that I couldnt do with ship-based weapons.
Fire first, 2 damage:
The Fighters are now support for the main fleet. They scrub shields and can allow the main fleet to concentrate more on hull killing weapons. They can mass and take down a small ship before it can fire. But they still really aren't overly cost effective at either role. For the same amount of tonnage, you can get a few Laser-type weaponry that can also strip the shields but have none of the limitations (ie, you can't blunt their effectiveness by parking a ship on an exposed side or by initiating a dogfight or having a high PD/Screen support or Flak etc). I believe Fighters have the proper feel/role here, but they are still too weak to accomplish the task cost-effectively, let alone if someone is prepared to deal with them. They do offer a potential new capability in taking out a small ship before it can fire, but the cost in Fighters do that is semi-impractical.
Fire first, 3 damage:
Obviously this is where I think they should be. This keeps them in the fleet support role and allows them limited ability to pre-empt the fire of small ship if the Fighter mass against them. They are a enough of a threat to consider using counter-tactics. This makes them WORTH the cost because now you have provoked a response from the enemy (either in design or maneuver/execution). The Fighters are now accomplishing something that I cannot easily replicate or better with other investment. They arent necessarily more 'powerful' than what I could otherwise get, but they are DIFFERENT. And that gives the game mroe options.
To me, that's what keeps a game fresh. Having lots of options that are inferior to one main idea keeps the game in balance, but it also makes things go stale much faster. The trick IMO is to present a lot of options, but make them different enough that none is clearly superior all (or most) the time. That may or may not coincide with the design goals for CB (if, for example, a specific dynamic is desirable/encouraged). But for a 'generic' system, I feel like the more viable options you present, the stronger the system.
And that is my motivation for all of the suggestions I've been making. I know I can just house rule it all and go from there. That's easy. But if the desire is truly present to make the system as robust as it can be, then there are things that I think could be tweaked to better accomplish that. Don't get me wrong, I think this is a FANTASTIC game system. I really do. But I also think that a lot of things were scaled down in the interest of making it 'unbreakable' to the point where many options really aren't all that appealing in a competitive environment. And with everything about the game being so close to that anyways, I thought it was worth the effort to try and take it to that point where there are many options, all of them good, none of them overpowering.